


don't want to let this go

by MurmuredLullabye



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7993930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurmuredLullabye/pseuds/MurmuredLullabye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If someone had asked Steve if it was worth it, he isn't sure how he would answer. Not anymore. </p><p>Or: In this world, it's Tony that dies on the steps of a government building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't want to let this go

**Author's Note:**

> So this was a thing I started writing at 1 am last night because the words wouldn't go away. The title is from The Fault in Our Stars by Troye Sivan, which I listened to pretty much on repeat while writing this. Unbetaed; all mistakes are my own.

Steve stares blankly at his half-packed bag. He knows he should finish packing and leave as soon as possible. Natasha set up a cover identity for him, gave him some money, like she did for all of the Avengers they got out of the raft, and Sam is waiting for him outside. They need to leave before someone finds them. He still has no idea how much Tony can do with FRIDAY and the surveillance systems that seem to be everywhere these days.

He never had to, before.

His exhaustion is bone-deep and aching in a way it never was before, even after he discovered it was Bucky under the Winter Soldier’s mask. At least then, Steve had a goal. A purpose. Now, there’s just - nothing. The Avengers that followed him to the airport in Germany have all gone their separate ways, following Natasha’s advice. There’s no team, no enemy to fight. No home to return to.

Steve wants to be angry at Tony for that, but he can’t muster up the energy. Tony fought for what he believed was right, and Steve has made the decision to respect that, no matter how much it cost both of them.

He tightens his jaw and returns to packing. There’s nothing he can do to change what happened, and no point in dwelling on it.

The silence is shattered by an obnoxiously loud ringtone. It takes Steve a moment to place it, but he bursts into motion and rushes over to the side table where he set the phone down. There’s only one person that has the number to that phone, and Steve turned the volume on it all the way up so he would know the instant Tony called.

Steve fumbles for the phone, almost drops it once before he flips it open and places it against his ear. His heart drums out a rapid tattoo against his ribcage. Why is Tony calling? Steve wasn’t sure he would call at all, never mind so soon. Is he hurt? In danger? Did Ross turn on him the way Steve suspected he would from the beginning?

He waits for a moment, but nothing comes from the other end of the phone. “Tony?” he asks.

Steve hears a deep inhale, and then, “Fuck you, Rogers.”

That’s not Tony. Steve stiffens. “Rhodes? How did you get his phone?” His voice is sharp and demanding, reminiscent of something he might have used on the battlefield.

Rhodes laughs, but it comes out raw and jagged and slightly hysterical. Steve’s grip on the phone tightens. Something is wrong. The laughter cuts off abruptly, and Rhodes snarls, “You’ve got some nerve, Rogers, and I swear to God, if I find out you had anything to do with this, I will hunt you down and murder you and every single person who followed you to that godforsaken airport.”

Steve recoils, staring at the phone in shock. He and Rhodes were never that close, but they had worked together, developed the kind of unspoken understanding common between soldiers. “What the hell are you talking about? Where is Tony?”

A snort. “Turn on the TV. I’m sure it’s everywhere by now.”

The knot of anxiety in his stomach tightens and develops claws that dig into his gut and tug. That’s twice now that Rhodes has ignored a question about Tony. “Rhodes--”

The line goes dead with a click, leaving Steve with nothing but a dial tone ringing in his ear. Slowly, he lowers the phone, flips it shut, and sets it back down on the side table. Nervous energy hums under his skin, and he almost brings his hand up in an instinctive move for his shield before he remembers that it’s no longer his. He has no idea what’s going on. No idea what Rhodes is so mad about. No idea why Tony gave the phone to someone else.

The news is at least somewhere to start, and there’s a TV in the hotel bedroom. It takes him a minute to find the remote, and then another to switch to a news channel. He lands on WHIH Newsfront, where Christine Everhart is already speaking to her political correspondent.

“--discuss the implications of the attack on the UN Headquarters in New York. Adam, your thoughts?”

The man - Will Adams, according to the subtitles - says, “Obviously this is a very big deal. It’s tempting to label it as a terrorist attack, but all the reports so far have said that only one person was injured. We have no idea what the shooter is or what their motives are, at least not yet.”

Christine arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “He was shot as he exited the building after a meeting discussing the Sokovia Accords with the Security Council. Isn’t the timing a little convenient?”

Waving a hand as if to push away her comment, Will says, “I’ll admit it’s suspicious, but--”

Christine’s hand goes to her ear and she frowns, then cuts Will off. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Will, but we’ve just received an update on Tony Stark’s status.”

Steve sucks in a deep breath. No. Oh god, no. Tony’s the victim? Shot as he exited the building of an organization supposedly founded on the principle of international cooperation. The irony doesn’t escape Steve. If he really was the only casualty, then this was definitely a targeted attack.

Christine swallows and stares at the camera. “I regret to report that Tony Stark was declared dead on arrival at Bellvue.”

For a moment, Steve is sure that he must have heard her wrong.

But she continues talking. “The bullet hit his heart and caused massive internal bleeding--”

He didn’t. His ears still work fine, or they did a moment ago, because now all Steve can hear is the dull pounding of his own pulse, fast and getting faster as the reality of what happened sinks in. Tony is dead. A sniper’s bullet to the heart. Dead, and not coming back, because his death was confirmed at a hospital, there’s a body, he’s not missing, he’s dead, killed in action but not. The words Tony said years ago ring through his head. We are not soldiers.

Steve’s knees collapse and he hits the floor. He stares blankly at the TV, still displaying Christine and Will talking casually, as if they haven’t just reported the death of one of the best men Steve has ever known. As if the world can just go on spinning the same way it always did, even if Tony Stark is no longer in it.

They argued and pushed and bantered, but Steve has respected him from the moment he flew that nuke into the portal, and that hasn’t changed. Even when Tony signed the Accords, made yet another bad choice because of his guilt, Steve never stopped respecting him. Never stopped considering him a friend. His attack on Bucky came close to breaking that, but - well. When they reached Wakanda, Bucky said that he understood why Tony did it, and if Bucky doesn’t blame him, than Steve certainly doesn’t have the right to do so.

If he’d been the one to see his mother murdered in front of his own eyes, if it had been Rhodey, or Pepper in Bucky’s place...Steve can’t honestly say that he would have reacted much better.

When Tony had made no public comments about going after the Avengers that hadn’t signed the Accords and Steve sent him the package with the letter and the phone, Steve sparked a tiny flame of hope for reconciliation. Hope that one day he might see the all of the Avengers together again. But that’s never going to happen now, because Tony is dead.

Steve’s heart is an open, gaping wound. His hands are shaking, but his eyes are dry. He doesn’t know where to go from here.


End file.
